by Sharon Potts
According to the news report, there had been no fatalities. So where was Puck now and what was he planning?
The back door opened behind her, then gently closed. She saw Jeremy’s leather shoes and suit pants, both splattered with mud. He sat down beside her and handed her a beer.
“Thought you could use this.”
“Thanks.” She took a swig from the bottle.
The croaking got louder, the air heavier.
“They used to fill up a plastic pool for us.” Jeremy’s voice seemed to come from a different dimension.
“Huh?”
“My grandparents. When Elise and I were little and we’d stay with them. You know, weekends or if my parents were both out of town. They had this blow-up pool. My grandfather would fill it with water.”
“That’s nice.”
“I have a lot of happy memories of this place.”
Robbie rested her hand on his knee. His strong, sturdy knee. She knew who the murderer was. They were one step closer to Jeremy being safe. “Stanford Fieldstone is Puck,” she said.
“Yeah. That’s what Kate said. So he used a fake name. What’s the big deal?”
“Puck’s a guy who’s been coming to The Garage lately.”
“Shit. You know him?”
Robbie nodded.
“And you didn’t know he was Fieldstone?”
“No. He dressed like a boater—or at least a weekend boater. But he never let on who he really was.”
“Damn—you knew him. I thought you were upset that the murderer was Gina Fieldstone’s husband.”
“That, too. It’s a lot to absorb. Stanford Fieldstone. Puck.” She shook her head.
“But it makes sense,” Jeremy said. “Fieldstone’s career is taking off. I guess the blackmailing was too much for him to handle.”
“But—” Robbie pulled out a weed that was growing in a crack of the concrete step.
“But what?”
“He seemed so nice.” Kate had said that, too. “And I liked him. But he was putting me on the whole time. I feel so, so—” She searched for the right word. “Deceived.”
Robbie took another swig of beer. There was a vibration in her pocket. Her cell phone. She had turned it to vibrate and left it in her pocket when they were at Mike’s.
She showed the display to Jeremy. Lieber.
“Don’t answer it.”
“I have to.”
“No, Robbie. We don’t have this figured out yet. It’ll just make things worse.”
“We have to trust someone.”
He cradled his beer bottle as Robbie took the call.
“Where are you?” Lieber’s voice was clipped.
Where was she? What should she say? Maybe Jeremy was right about making things worse. “Getting ready for work,” Robbie said. “I’m on the late shift tonight.”
“Really? Because I’m at your apartment and there’s no sign of you.”
Robbie looked at Jeremy for help. He shook his head and mouthed, “I told you so.”
“And where’s Jeremy? Is he with you? His car’s at the SOBE, but he isn’t.”
“What’s wrong? Why are you looking for us?”
“Jesus, Robbie. Why are you playing games with me? Haven’t you figured out I’m on your side? That I’m probably the only one out here who’s trying to help you?”
“We’re in Coconut Grove,” Robbie said. “At Jeremy’s grandfather’s.”
Jeremy hit his head with his fist.
“Put Jeremy on,” Lieber said. “I need to speak to him.”
Robbie held out the phone. “She wants to speak to you.”
Jeremy shook his head no. Robbie kept holding the phone out for him. Finally, he took it.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”
Robbie couldn’t hear Lieber’s side of the conversation.
“Sorry,” Jeremy said. He glared at Robbie. “I turned it off. I guess I forgot to turn it back on.”
Lieber was talking for a long while. A dog barked somewhere in the distance.
“I understand,” Jeremy said to the phone. “Okay. I promise.”
He closed the phone and handed it back to Robbie.
“What did she say?”
“She told me about Tyra being found dead and a couple of people describing someone who looked like me getting into an argument with Tyra. She said she was worried about us. My car’s in the garage and your bicycle was found chained outside the building. She thought something had happened to us.”
“So she didn’t assume you killed Tyra and ran away?”
“She didn’t, but that doesn’t mean the other investigators aren’t thinking that way.”
“And you agreed to stay here until she comes?”
He nodded.
“Aren’t you afraid she’ll arrest you?”
Jeremy sipped his beer. “She said she just wants to talk to me.”
“And you believe her?”
“You’re the one who said we have to trust someone.”
“Does she know about Mike and the other guy?”
“She didn’t say anything about Key Largo.”
“What about the accident on U.S. 1?”
“Didn’t mention it.”
A light breeze carried the scent of roses. Puck. Where was he now and what was his next move? An idea was forming in her head. Robbie started to stand up.
“What are you doing?” Jeremy asked.
“I need to get out of here with Kate.”
“What do you mean? You can’t just leave.”
“Please, Jeremy. I hate to subject Kate to going back over everything with Lieber.”
“So you’re laying it all on me?”
Robbie sat back down. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t leave Jeremy now. Her plan would have to wait. It probably wasn’t viable, anyway. “I’m sorry. That was selfish of me. We’ll talk to Lieber together. Kate will be fine.”
Jeremy stared across the dark lawn as though he was looking at the blow-up swimming pool from his childhood. “Go,” he said finally. “You need to protect Kate.”
“We can protect her together.”
Jeremy pulled her head toward him and kissed her hair. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ve got my grandfather and Elise. And you and Kate will be safe at your apartment. If Fieldstone is looking for her, he’ll be after a blonde girl with gray eyes.” He tensed. “Is there any reason to think he knows where you live?”
Robbie thought for a moment. “No,” she said. “I never tell any of the customers at The Garage where I live.”
Jeremy lifted her chin. He seemed to be memorizing her face.
Robbie was torn. Leave? Stay? “What about Lieber?” she asked.
“I’ll tell her about Fieldstone.”
“But we don’t have proof. Just Kate thinking he’s the guy she and Tyra brought back Sunday night. And that’s not enough to tie him to the murder spree. Everything still points to you.”
“Well, hopefully Lieber will believe me.”
“But if she doesn’t?”
“Then she doesn’t. There’s nothing more we can do.”
Robbie could smell the roses, stronger now. “Don’t say anything about Fieldstone, yet. I have an idea how to trap him.”
Jeremy put his beer down hard on the step. “No way, Robbie. We’re not doing this ourselves anymore.”
“I wasn’t planning to. I’m not that crazy. Just tell Lieber the basics. Nothing that might connect you to Key Largo. When I’m ready, I’ll call you. Then you and the police can meet me and you can tell Lieber about Fieldstone on the way.”
“Ready? Ready for what? What are you planning?”
“I don’t have all the details worked out, but I promise I’ll call you before I do anything dangerous.”
Chapter 45
They sat inches apart from each other in Jeremy’s grandfather’s car. Two sisters, separated by eighteen years of memories that they weren’t given the opportunity to share.
It was around midnight, and the traffic was light. Robbie occasionally glanced over at Kate, who was sitting with her head resting against the passenger-side window, as though she was watching the overhanging trees and houses go by.
Was Kate thinking how strange it was to be here with her sister? A sister she hadn’t even known existed a few hours ago?
Kate must have sensed Robbie looking at her. She tried to smile. Her facial muscles were tense and her blue eyes rimmed in red.
“You okay?” Robbie asked.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“This whole nightmare will be over soon.”
“I guess.” Kate chewed on her finger.
Robbie stopped at a red light. “I need to call Dad and tell him you’re okay.”
“Please. Not yet.”
The light turned green. They drove past the walled, gated estate of Vizcaya. Wild bougainvillea cascaded over the stuccoed walls. “I know you don’t know me yet, but I wish you’d talk to me, Kate. Why are you so afraid of calling Dad? He needs to know you’re safe.”
In the uneven light of the passing streetlamps, Robbie could see Kate had covered her face. Beneath the thin, stained T-shirt, her shoulders were trembling, as though she was crying.
Robbie wanted to kick herself. She was rushing things. Kate wasn’t ready. And how could she blame her? Kate had just been held in captivity and abused for almost two weeks, believing she had killed her friend. After a trauma like that, how could she possibly be ready to open up?
“I’m sorry,” Robbie said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“He hates me.”
A chill ran down Robbie’s back. “What are you talking about? Who hates you?”
“Dad does.”
“No, Kate. You’re wrong. He loves you. He’s worried sick about you. He’s been here in South Beach the whole time looking for you.”
“He hates me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He blames me for everything.”
“Everything?”
Kate just stared out the car window.
Robbie turned onto a side street that wound down to the bay. She pulled up along the bayfront walk, towering condos across the road. A man and woman strolled with their dog down a street lined with palm trees. The bay rippled, undulating black moguls in the intermittent moonlight. Beyond, the lights of the Rickenbacker Causeway leading to Key Biscayne glittered like a tiara.
Robbie left the engine running and turned to face Kate. Old-car smells enveloped them.
“Talk to me. Please.”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
“I’m your sister.”
Kate’s entwined fingers rested on the faded, paint-splattered jeans Robbie had given her.
“Please, Kate. Start at the beginning, if that’s easier.”
Kate squeezed her hands tighter. “When I was a little girl, he didn’t talk to me much. Sometimes, he’d tell me bedtime stories, but that was about all. I didn’t think anything was wrong with that. I had my mom. And she always said he was busy. He had important work and I shouldn’t bother him.”
Robbie looked out toward the bay. She remembered her childhood house on the St. Johns River, Spanish moss hanging from towering oak trees. Her dad returning home from the hospital after a late night emergency call, standing on the flagstone patio that smelled like magnolias, staring at nothing. Then later that night, how Robbie had overheard him talking to her mother. There’s nothing I can do, he told her. Absolutely nothing.
Had he been talking about his patient as she’d always believed, or his dying relationship with Robbie’s mother?
“But when I got older,” Kate said. “I realized something was messed up. I’d see my friends’ parents and they were always doing stuff together.”
“But not your mom and dad?”
“Dad was always busy. He’d stay in his office late, or go to the hospital. And my mom. She drank a lot. And I knew she had a problem, but I didn’t know what to do.”
Robbie ached for her sister. She’d had no one to turn to. Neither had Robbie.
“Then one day, my mom had a bad episode,” Kate said. “I came home from school and found her lying in the shower. First, I thought she was dead. I called my dad and he came home and we got her into bed. And I knew my mom was sick. That she needed help. I screamed at my father and I told him to do something. And he got very angry at me.”
“Angry? What did he do?”
“He didn’t yell or anything. He just gave me this really cold look. Like he didn’t want to have anything more to do with me.”
Just like the look he’d given Robbie the other day when he disagreed with what she was saying. “Then what happened?”
Kate wiped her eyes. “A few days later, my mom died in a car accident. I was twelve. Dad never talked to me again.”
“He never talked to you again?” Robbie asked. “I don’t understand. He told me you two did lots of things together. That you made him dinner and you’d go shopping. Sometimes you even ate out at restaurants. And he told me you talked about things. School, and—”
“Not that kind of talking. Don’t you understand? We spoke, but he never talked to me.”
“I’m not following.”
“He lectured. But not like he was my dad. More like he was a doctor instructing one of his patients. What I could and couldn’t do. Never drink or I’d end up an alcoholic, never have sex until I was married or I’d end up with a terrible disease or worse.”
“But he couldn’t have been that protective,” Robbie said. “He let you go away for spring break.”
“Oh, my God. Do you know what I had to do to get him to say yes? Joanne’s father practically had to get down on his knees and beg Dad to let me go.” She bit down on her lip. “Don’t you see, how can I ever face him again? He’ll blame me for everything. If I had listened to him, none of this would have happened.” She began sobbing hard. “And he’s right. If I’d listened to him, Joanne would still be alive.”
“Oh, Kate.” Robbie reached across the console to hold her. “You can’t do this to yourself.”
“He’s right to hate me. It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault and he doesn’t hate you.” Robbie slid her fingers through Kate’s hair. The texture so like her own. “He loves you.”
Kate pulled back. Tears clung to her long dark lashes. “How can you say that? If he loved me, why didn’t he show me?”
Why didn’t he try to find me?
“Maybe he doesn’t know how,” Robbie said. “Or maybe he’s so filled with guilt over the things he messed up that he doesn’t know how to make them right.”
“What do you mean?”
“He should have helped your mother,” Robbie said. “Or maybe he tried and failed and couldn’t acknowledge his failure. But that’s his weakness. Our dad has a hard time taking responsibility for things.”
Had her father’s guilt over cheating on Robbie’s mother kept him from a relationship with Robbie?
“But why would he act like he hated me?” Kate asked.
“Maybe he felt he didn’t deserve you.”
And suddenly Robbie got it. All those years that he’d stayed away from her. He was punishing himself.
Kate’s head was tilted as though she was weighing what Robbie had said. Her straight black hair formed a perfect razor’s edge against her shoulder. “Punishing himself for letting my mother die?”
“That’s right.”
“So he doesn’t hate me?”
“No, Kate. He loves you.”
“He loves me,” Kate repeated, as though not fully convinced. She touched one of Robbie’s feathered earrings. “You know, when I was a little girl, he would tell me stories about an Indian princess who wore beads and feathers.”
&nb
sp; Robbie got goose bumps up and down her arms.
“I loved those stories so much,” Kate said. “In one of them, the princess found an arrowhead. I guess that’s why I got a tattoo of an arrowhead. I always hoped Dad would love me again, like when I was a little girl and he called me his Indian princess.”
You’re my little Pocahontas, he used to say.
“Is it okay if I call him now?” Robbie asked.
Kate nodded.
Chapter 46
Her father’s phone rang once and went to voice mail, as though he’d turned it off or the battery was dead. “It’s Robbie,” she said to the tape. “Kate’s okay. She’s with me. Call me.”
Kate’s face fell. “He’s not answering?”
Robbie shook her head. “But at least when he checks his voice mail, he’ll know you’re okay. But now I’ve got to do something to help Jeremy.”
Kate nodded.
Robbie left her phone on the console as she drove. Kate’s hand hovered near it, as though to grab it when it rang. But it didn’t.
Their father. Where was he? And why hadn’t he answered his phone?
When they got to her apartment, Robbie went straight into the kitchen, leaving Kate standing in the living room. But Robbie didn’t have time to help her sister get settled in. Where had she put that napkin?
She opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged through bills to be paid, pencils, rubber bands. She found it between two take-out food menus. A square cocktail napkin with a picture of a rose and a phone number.
“What’s that?” Kate asked from the doorway. She was holding Matilda in her arms. The cat purred loudly.
“The phone number of the man you were with Sunday night. Stanford Fieldstone.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “You have his phone number?”
“He used to come into the bar where I work.”
“So you knew him, too.”
There was something in Kate’s voice that Robbie couldn’t make out. It almost sounded defensive. But Robbie didn’t have time to analyze. She studied her sister. The resemblance was uncanny. And with a wig, makeup and— “Do you still have the gray contact lenses?” Robbie asked.
Kate nodded slowly. “I was going to throw them away, but Elise thought the police might want them for something. Why?”